Image by Kanenori from Pixabay 

And our last story for the prompt "It was just the wind." is by Amanda Leigh!! This one has a bit of a spooky feel to it. I honestly felt that it was rather "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" reminiscent as I was writing it. (Who remembers that show? If you do PLEASE comment below!! It was one of my all time favorites. It was also a favorite of Jessica VanderWerff's.) Anyway. The story. It is an eerier sort of vibe, but not downright horror. I hope you enjoy, and please comment below!! 

Grandma's Secret by Amanda Leigh

The forest envelops us in its branches, like arms reaching out to us. A warm glow cascades down on us from above, bathing the trees, the bushes, the grass in golden light in patches where the light comes through. It’s a fine day, a lovely day, and nothing about this should feel threatening, ominous. But it does. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being followed, that someone – or something – is in this forest with us, has been eyeing us, and following surreptitiously as we made our way to the clearing with the cool, clear pond. I felt it, eyes on me, something watching. Every time I turn around I think I’m going to find someone peeking out from behind a tree trunk. A time or two I could have sworn I caught the edge of a hand on the rough bark of a tree, or the swish of fabric, but when I dared to look closer, I saw nothing.

A crunch of a twig or maybe leaves behind us, I know I heard it this time. I whirl around before the culprit can escape, just as Jocelyn says, “What was that?”

When I finish turning on the spot, there is a girl standing behind us on crunching red and gold leaves. “Nothing. It was just the wind.”

My mouth goes dry at her sudden appearance. My eyes dart side to side, but I see no one else. Jocelyn is quiet behind me. “Um, what are you doing here? Were you following us the whole time?”

Her head tips to the side, and something about the movement is too slow, too graceful, too…unnatural. My heart thumps hard against my rib cage. I swallow with difficultly against the dryness in my throat.

“No,” she says finally, shaking her head and slowly tilting it back into place. Then she grabs up her skirts and lifts them as she hops, all but skips, over the leaves. “No. I saw you, and came to say hello.”

“Saw us from where?”

Jocelyn tugs on my sleeve. “Jaz, can we just go? Please?”

She tugs harder, but I stand still, my feet unwilling to move, drawn to this strange girl before us. Something about her isn’t right, this doesn’t feel right at all. I can’t pull my eyes away from her as she slowly kicks out a foot at a pile of leaves, even that movement coming off as too slow and deliberate. Yet with an air of effortlessness to it. Joyce tugs my sleeve again, but I still don’t move. The girl’s hair flies out behind her as she comes to a standstill, and then waves as if a breeze, though I feel no wind. Her hands clasp behind her back, and she simply stares at us, smiling serenely. It isn’t necessarily a threatening smile, but something in it still sends my pulse racing. Just as I take a step closer to her, a murder of crows flies out of the nearest tree, cawing loud and ominously.

“Shit!” Joyce exclaims behind me, and I can just picture her clapping her hand over her chest. The girl before us doesn’t even flinch, just stays staring at us. No, wait…staring at me.

“What’s your name?” I ask her.

Pale eyes bore into me, and she doesn’t answer right away. She blinks, and I get the impression she’s thinking about it. Why would she have to think about her own name?

“Cynthia,” she says finally. “My name is Cynthia.”

“Cynthia.” I test it out on my tongue. “Nice to meet you, Cynthia,” I say slowly. Her heart shaped face is perfect, unblemished, and unmarred by age. “How old are you, Cynthia?”

“I’m fourteen,” she says, and then I hear it. Something off in her voice, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s as if it’s coming from an old radio, the kind my grandma had in her house and would make us listen to sometimes.

“Fourteen? What are you doing out here all alone?”

“My mother was out here with me.” She looks around her. “I lost her.”

Behind me, Joycelyn leans over to whisper in my ear. “Come on, Jaz, can we please go? Something doesn’t feel right.” I lean back a little closer, though my eyes are trained on Cynthia. “I can’t explain it, but…I don’t like this. Please? Let’s just go?”

The logical side of me (or is it the illogical side? For what harm could this girl pose to us?) think she is right, but there is another part of me, and that part doesn’t feel right about leaving this girl alone in the woods, looking for her mother.

“You go,” I whisper back to her. “I’ll stay here.”

“What?” she hisses. “Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not. I’m not leaving you alone in here…with her.” She nearly spits out the word her and I wonder what she feels when she looks at her.

“Joycelyn, she’s a fourteen-year-old girl looking for her mother. I can’t just leave her. I may never know where my mother is but maybe I can help her find hers. Besides, what harm could she do?”

She is so close I feel the shake of her head. “That’s what they always say in horror movies right before that someone does, in fact, do them harm.”

“I’ll be fine,” I whisper back. “You can go.”

Her warm exhale lands on my neck. “No,” she says finally. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Cynthia kicks at some leaves, and looks back up at us. Her green eyes the same shade of green the leaves are in Spring and Summer. Can I just leave her out here? She swishes her skirts against the leaves and the swoosh of it rings through the silent forest. Jocelyn is right; there is something strange about her, like she doesn’t fit. But I also know that I can’t leave her, I just can’t.

“Okay,” I say, thinking fast. “Okay. We’ll go, but I’m still not leaving her. She’s coming with us.”

Another sigh. “If that is the only way to get you out of her, fine. Let’s go.”

“Good,” I mumble, turning my full attention back on the girl before us. “Cynthia?” She cocks her head. “We’re going to go back, why don’t you come with us? We can find someone to help you and-“

“No,” she cuts me off.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m not going with you.”

“But Cynthia-“

“I’m staying here.”

Joycelyn edges closer, but still angles her body so I’m standing in front of her. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye and she glances back. “Now what?”

Now what, indeed.

“You go on ahead,” I whisper. “I’ll convince her to come, we’ll be right behind you.”

“No!” she all but shouts. Cynthia doesn’t react, but Joyce whispers the next words anyway. “No, absolutely not. You’re going to come with me to find a park ranger, and we’re going to tell him about the girl in the woods. Then they’ll figure this out. That’s how we’re doing this, and you know I’m right.”

I know she is, and yet I can’t bring myself to leave this girl. Something in me is drawing me to her, a pull that simply won’t let take one step away with Joycelyn. But I know she won’t leave without me, and she won’t stop going on about it if I don’t do something.

“Okay,” I concede, or pretend to. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

“Cynthia, you’re sure you don’t want to come with us?” Joycelyn’s voice is shaky, but she gives one last try nonetheless.

“No, I’m okay, thank you,” Cynthia says, unconcerned.

“Okay,” she mutters. She jerks her head over her shoulder. “Come on.”

“Coming.”

She’s walking so fast, and her boots are crunching so hard and loud on the leaves and twigs that she doesn’t notice I don’t follow her.

***

My breath saws out of my lungs in huffs as I all but run from the scene of that little girl who freaked the hell out of me. I don’t know what Jaz was thinking, wanting to stay with her.

I turn around to ask my friend just that question and am met with…no one. My heart plummets. “Jaz?” I ask softly, not wanting to disturb the forest, or anything else that might be lurking in it. “Jaz?” A little louder. Where is she? I spin on the spot, but see no one around through the half bare branches of the trees. “Jaz?” I yell.

Nothing in the forest moves. It is completely and utterly still.

The truth hits hard. She stayed behind. She never meant to come with me. I should have known, but I just wanted to get out of there. But…have I really gone this far? How long have I been walking? How far could I have gotten? Not this far, surely? There is no sign of them on any side of me. The slithering feeling that something is wrong creeps over me again.

“Jaz?” I scream.

***

“You sent her away,” Cynthia says, her head titled to the side in that unnatural way of hers. Her voice so like an old radio, I’m even convinced I hear the crackling of static.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to leave you out here alone.”

She clasps her hands behind her back. “I think I’ve been out here alone…” she tilts her head back, looking up through the branches of the trees. “A long time, I think? I’m not sure. I can’t remember…”

“You don’t know when you got lost?”

She walks over to a tree and reaches her hand up, brushing it softly against the bark. I watch for any sign of an animal – a bird, a squirrel, an insect, - reacting but nothing happens. The forest is eerily still. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else out here at all. This is a national park, during the day. Shouldn’t other people be out here? Were there other people out here when Joycelyn and I first walked into these woods? I can’t remember.

I still feel that pull to Cynthia, but the growing awareness that something is off is building up inside me. Where are all the people? Where are all the animals? I haven’t seen one since that murder of crows scared Joyce flying out of the tree. The very tree Cynthia is now touching, I believe. There should at least be animals scurrying around in the trees. But there is nothing.

What’s scared them off?

Gulping down saliva, I realize I know the answer. Cynthia. She scared them off.

“No,” she answers me finally, still looking up into the tree branches. Or passed them, to the sky. “I can’t remember.”

“What year is it, Cynthia?” The question surprises me as it comes out of my mouth, like I’ve known to ask it since she first appeared behind us.

She turns to look at me again. “Nineteen fifty-two,” she says matter-of-factly.

The world seems to crash down around me. It feels like I have a bunch of pieces to a puzzle but haven’t fit them in quite right yet. But her proclamation of the year sends me reeling for some reason.

“Nineteen fifty-two?” I repeat.

She blinks, regards me skeptically. “Of course. What year do you think it is?”

I hesitate before giving my answer. “Two-thousand and twenty-two.”

“Hmm,” she says. I wait, but she says nothing more.

“Cynthia, why do you want to stay in the forest? Why didn’t you want to come with me and my friend? To find someone who can help you.”

Her green eyes are confused, and sad, as she stares at me. “I don’t…I don’t think they can help me?” She sits down cross-legged amongst the leaves.

“Why not?”

“I think that…that I’ve been beyond their help for a long time now.”

Leaves crunch under me as I, too, site cross legged on the ground. “Why do you say that?”

She doesn’t answer, simply sits upon the ground, her hands reaching in front of her to toy with some deep red, fallen leaves. She grips it gingerly in her fingers, but even still, it crumbles apart in her hands and the tiny pieces scatter to the ground amongst the other leaves. I watch them fall, flutter through her fingers; once here, and now so easily gone.

“What is your name? Your friend called you Jaz.”

“It’s short for Jasmine,” I tell her, and wonder if I should prod her to answer my question.

We sit in silence. Total silence. No animals scampering along the forest floor or in the trees, no people, no birds chirping, no wind to rustle the leaves. Just total, complete silence. The only things making any sounds out here in this forest are us. A chill skitters down my spine. Cynthia looks up to me from the ground and her green eyes snag me. I shake my head, trying to shake off the feeling inside me.

“Cynthia,” I say quietly, “Will you come back with me?”

“Back?” she asks, and I detect a hint of panic in her voice.

“Yes, back.” I squint at her, as if that will help me to find the answers I want about this girl who just appeared before us. “We can find someone to help you. Help you get home. Help you…find your mother?”

Her green eyes go wide and then she hastily looks back down as she picks up another leaf, the crunch of it the only sound in the silent woods.

“Cynthia?” She doesn’t look up at me, or answer. “Cynthia,” I repeat. She still doesn’t look at me, but I press on. “What happened to your mother? What happened to you? Can you remember anything?”

A mumbled word reaches me, but I can’t make it out. “What? You remember what?”

“Light,” she says, a little louder this time. “I remember light.”

“Light. Like, car lights? Headlights?”

Her brow furrows in concentration. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she says slowly.

“Not a car?” I ask to confirm and she nods her head. “Okay,” I say slowly, bite down on my lip for a second.

“Maybe…maybe a flashlight,” she says before I can voice the possibility.

“A flashlight,” I repeat quietly, nearly a whisper. That means someone was holding it, I think to myself. Who was it? Was it her mom? People searching for her? Or something…worse? “Do you remember who was holding it?” My voice is slow, soft, quiet; not wanting to scare her way like the frightened animal she reminds me of. And if this answer goes the way I’m dreading, that alone could be enough to spook her, to stimy the progress we’ve made together.

She doesn’t answer me, but I can see the far off look in her eyes. Like she’s seeing something that isn’t there. Something I can’t see. Or someone. I hold my hand to her, and her eyes focus back in on me a fraction. Wide, confused green eyes. I stand, and her eyes widen more.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s walk.” I don’t want to suggest going back again, as the idea clearly does not appeal to her. But maybe I can get her to walk with me; surreptiously get closer to my destination. “Just walk,” I say and her eyes flicker between my face and hand. She doesn’t take my hand, but she does stand up. She seems farther away from me than she was just a moment ago, but she nods and we walk off together. Silence envelopes us, and her eyes are distant again. I let the silence permeate the air as we walk on for five minutes or so, then I say, cautiously, “Cynthia?”

She doesn’t stop walking, but she gives a slight start, my voice cutting into her thoughts, her memories. “Do you remember who was holing it?” she repeats my question from several minutes before.

“Yes…”

Her mouth opens to speak, but no words come out right away, and I notice a slight shudder run through her. “I remember…something.” A pause, a slight break in her pace, but she keeps walking. “Someone.”

“Someone.” A whisper I hardly recognize as my own voice. “Do you-“ I croak through my dry throat, then start again after giving a cough to clear it. It’s still dry. “Do you remember anything about them?” The air itself seems to hold its breath around us.

“Cynthia?”

“I think it was a man. Dressed in black? No, perhaps brown?”

Brown, to blend in with the forest, I think, my chest constricting, feeling like it’s filling with acid from the burning in my throat.

“A park ranger?” I ask hopefully, though I can feel it, in my bones, what her answer will be.

“I don’t think so, no…”

I’m not sure I want to know if she remembers anymore. I want to stop right here, beg for her not to go on, because in my gut I can feel where this is going. But that makes no sense… my mind argues. I know it doesn’t, and yet I have such a strong feeling about this. I turn back around, looking at the forest around us as we walk. Barely a whisper of wind through the trees, one or two animals scurrying or flying overheard, but everything is still too still. Something is wrong, so wrong, but my head refuses to accept what my heart seems to know it is. We walk in silence for a while. I can’t bring myself to ask more yet, though I know I’ll have to. I promised to help Cynthia, and I still will, even if that help looks different than I originally thought.

My feet keep walking over crunching leaves, but I open my mouth to ask the question. “Any-anything else?” I ask. “Do you remember anything else?”

I get no response, but keep walking for a minute. There are no footsteps behind me. There never have been, I think with a slight chill skittering up my spine. But I always knew she was right behind me, walking with me. I felt it, I realize. I didn’t hear her, I felt her right there. Now I don’t.

“Cynthia?”

No response.

I turn around, expecting to find her gone with no trace – just like the first time, it seems – but she’s still there. Still as a statue. Or something else… Now the forest is totally still again. No animal scurrying, no bird flying, not one leaf swaying. Total and complete stillness and silence. And so is Cynthia. Total and complete stillness and silence. That can’t be right, she has to at least be breathing. Even as I think it, there is another part of me that thinks Cynthia hasn’t taken a breath in a long, long time.

“What year is it?” Cynthia asks suddenly.

“What?”

“The year,” she repeats, sounding breathless despite the possible absence of breath in her lungs at all. “What’s the year? You asked me what year it was, I said 1952, but I never asked you. What year is it, Jaz?”

“It’s 2022.”

“Sixty years?” It comes out on a breath I’m convinced she can’t actually take. So I watch her chest, and there is no rise and fall with breaths she should be taking in. “It’s been sixty years? How-“ she’s cut off, like something physically ripped the words from her throat. I swear I see tears gather in her green eyes.

“Cynthia?” I venture a step closer to her. Then another. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I remember,” she says around a soft, strangled sob. “I remember. We got separated, my mother and I, we got separated. There was something, someone, in the forest. A man?” It comes out as a question, and I’m not sure what would be worse. If it wasn’t a man – a human-, or if it was. “I don’t remember much else before…I remember seeing them, and then I remember waking up in a…a cave, I think. I don’t know how long I was there. And then I was…suddenly wandering the forest again. And then I was here, with you. Back there, when we first saw each other.”

“When you turned up behind us and said it was just the wind,” I whisper.

“Yes. How come I don’t remember anything? How come…if it has been sixty years, why haven’t I changed? I still look like a fourteen-year-old girl, don’t I?”

I nod.

“Your…contraption, I’ve never seen it. What is it?”

“A cell phone,” I say.

She laughs softly, a sad sound that tugs at my heart. “I don’t even know what that is. A telephone?”

“Yes,” I say. “But portable. You can carry it around and call people with it, in case of emergencies.” I wonder if this would qualify as an emergency then almost laugh aloud at the thought. An emergency. What would I say? Who would I even call? My mind very inappropriately throws back an answer of Ghostbusters. Unbelievable.

I glance down at it.

“Are you going to call someone?” Cynthia asks, and I think I sense a note of worry in her voice.

“I can’t; there’s no service.”

Her brow crinkles with confusion, but she doesn’t ask me to explain. That’s good, because I don’t know if I could explain it to her satisfactorily at this moment. A heavy silence drags on between us, and then Cynthis breaks it.

“I died, didn’t I?” The soft sentence hits like a bomb around us in the silent forest.

Our eyes meet, and I don’t want to tell her yes, but also can’t bring myself to tell her no, because I think – no, I know – that I would be lying to her. Because I think I’ve known this truth for longer than I want to admit. Perhaps since she first appeared behind us without so much as rustling a leaf under her feet.

Instead, I reach out to touch her – for the first time since I saw her. My fingers hover above her, my hand trembling, not wanting to close the distance between our fingers. Cynthia doesn’t budge as I force my hand forward to touch hers.

Only my fingers slip right through hers.

I suck in a breath, and Cynthia looks from our hands to my eyes, her young face unsurprised but teaming with sadness. Her green eyes lose their sheen, and her eyes look so much older than her fourteen-year-old self. Older than me. As old as she should be right now; as old as she should have been given the chance to grow to be. It hits me all at once; tears are sliding down my face before I even have a chance to register their sting in the corners of my eyes. Not even giving me the chance to try to hold them back, though I’m not sure I would have. This girl, this innocent teenage girl, lost her life in this forest. Years stolen away from her. Years she deserved to live. And her mother. Those years were stolen from her, too. Whoever…I can hardly bring myself to think the word. Whoever killed this girl, he robbed her and all the people she loved of years they should have had. Memories they should have made. Though a ghost stands before, the one who killed her is the monster. The one to fear and revile.

I nod, the lump in my throat making words impossible.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out.

She simply nods. Her eyes search mine, something other than sadness in them. “You look so familiar.”

“So do you,” I say.

“What’s your last name?” she asks.

“Terjesen.”

She blinks, her green eyes gone wide. “That’s my last name.”

The lump in my throat gets stuck, like a baseball inside my throat; I can’t get the words out. I flap my lips a few times as Cynthia looks at me. “You’re…you’re Cynthia Terjesen?”

“Yes.”

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Adeline.”

My knees buckle and I nearly fall to the leaf strewn ground. “That’s my grandmother.” My throat is so dry that the words actually hurt coming up.

We stare. Just stare. Neither of us seem able to find the words to express what we’re thinking. Whatever that might be. I’m not even sure that I know what I’m thinking right now.

“Adeline Terjesen. She…she was your grandmother?”

“Yes, she is,” I whisper.

Cynthia big eyes blink twice, and then she says, “So…that…that would make me your…your…”

“…my aunt,” I finish the thought for her, even though I can scarcely believe it myself. It makes no sense. Doesn’t it?

“I’m your aunt,” she repeats. Like she’s testing the words on her tongue, her eyes vacant and distant, looking just over my shoulder. Then her eyes snap back to mine. “But, you, you’re,” she stops, stuttering over her words, but I think I know where she is going with them. I don’t interrupt though, just let her talk. “You’re here.”

I nod. “I am.”

“You exist.”

“I do.” Another nod.

“You’re here,” she repeats. Her brow scrunches with concentration or displeasure, I can’t be sure. “That means that…my mother had another child.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “My mother.”

If the breath could have been knocked out of her, that is what would have happened. Her eyes widen, then she blinked and stumbled backward. Then she blinked again, and a sad little smile overtook her face. Her pretty young face lost its surprise and was suddenly a mask of almost calm. Not quite, but it was much closer to calm. Probably closer than mine was. Her lips part, but no sound escapes them for what feels like an eternity.

Then, “What’s her name?

“What?” I repeat.

“Your mother. My…my…my sister.” I think I see her gulp, gulp down her tears.

My chest seems to constrict in on itself. Her sister. My mother. Her sister, this girl before me, this fourteen-year-old girl, - the one whose life was robbed from her – is my Aunt, She should be eighty-four years old right now. She should have grey hair, skin wrinkled from years of smiling and laughing and frowning and crying. Maybe she would have children, grandchildren. I would have cousins; I have nine now. Mom has no siblings, Or, that is what we thought, if she had grandchildren, I would have second cousins, probably. I think they might be closer to my age than the children she would have had in this hypothetical life of hers.

I wonder what they would have been like. Would I call her children my cousins or would I call them Aunt and Uncle? How many would she have had? Would she have had only one or two, like Grandma Adelaide. Or would she have a bunch of children? Six or seven, or more? Would her children have had children?  Would I have a whole litter of cousins of running around? What would they be like? Would we have had play dates as babies and toddlers? They would have been my first friends? Would we still have sleepovers today? Would they cone over for dinner? Would Cynthia still be there with us at her ripe old age of eighty-four? Sitting next to my grandmother at the head of the table, my mom on the other side? Telling stories if their youth? Mom would have had a sister to grow up with. She always wanted one, and she just never knew that she did have one, she just never had a chance to meet her, to know her. Grandma didn’t even tell anyone. Suddenly, the crime this person committed – whoever they are – seems to increase tenfold the more I think about the life Cynthia could have had, my mom could have had, the life I could have had, all the people who could have been born and the lives they could have lived. The people they could have loved and who could have loved them, the things they would have done. This man, this person, someone, they robbed the world of so much. I should feel anger toward them for what they did, and indeed I do, but right now, what I’m feeling more than anything is overwhelming sadness. For Grandma, for mom, for Cynthia, for me, for all the unborn children and grandchildren, for the world that could have known them all.

“Jaz?” Cynthia whispers, and I wonder how long I’ve been standing here ____ over things that could have – should have – been. “What is your mother’s – my sister’s – name?”

“Leeann,” I whisper, my voice finally cracking around the lump in my throat. “Her name is Leann.”

“And what about my mother? Your grandmother?”

I don’t understand her at first. I already told her my grandmother’s name, that’s how we knew she is her mother. I start to shake my head and Cynthia says, “Is she still alive?”

I almost laugh, and I can’t pinpoint why. “Yes,” I say, around the tears that have now started to fall, though a laugh or two falls free, as well. “Yes, she is still alive. She just turned one hundred.”

“One hundred,” she repeats with awe. “Mama lived to be one hundred.”

I nod, struck dumb for words, hoping some more will come to me.

“Eighty-six years older than me.”

Again, I don’t know what to say to that. That is nearly the age that Cynthia – my Aunt Cynthia, I think – should be now. “Yes.”

The forest is as silent as ever as Cynthia asks her next question. “Was she – is she – happy? Did she have a good life?”

Tears pour more freely down my face. At this girl’s concern, after figuring out – remembering – that she was murdered, being her mother’s happiness.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I think she is.” I don’t know if there is a right answer to this. Cynthia surely wouldn’t want to hear that her mother was unhappy, but what about hearing that her mother was happy even though Cynthia wasn’t there? Even though she disappeared and her mother never saw her again? Would that hurt to hear? Did it? And I can’t know everything Grandma is thinking. How truly happy she really us, though I do think she us happy. But I can only imagine the amount of times in a day she thinks of her lost daughter Cynthia and what could have been, just as I did. Except Grandma never knew for sure what happened to her. She’s gone eighty-six years without knowing. How did she do it and not go mad with the uncertainty?

A gnawing, hollow feeling crawls its way into my chest at the thought of all these years Grandma went without telling any of us. With keeping it to herself. Did she tell anyone?

“What about my father?” Cynthia asks, and my eyes dart back to hers.

“Grandpa died almost twenty years ago.”

Her eyes widen, and I wonder that she’s thinking. “I guess he…” she pauses, grappling for the right words. “Moved on?” She phrases it as a question, and I hope to God that she is not asking me, because I certainly do not have an answer for her. “Why wouldn’t he…” she stops again. My brows crinkle in curiosity. “Look for me, come find me.” Then my face pulls down into a frown. “Could he have?” Now her green eyes are staring straight into mine, and I think she is asking me for an answer this time.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I have no idea.” Then, because she looks so sad, I add, “If he could have…if he knew he could, I’m sure he would have, Cynthia.”

A sad, but almost bitter looking smile spreads over her fair features. “No.” She shakes her head. “I know my father. The way he would he dealt with my disappearance would be to move on from it. To completely erase it as best as he could,” she says it ruefully.

“I don’t think he could ever erase it, Cynthia. There is no erasing such a thing.”

“No, maybe not,” he concedes. “But he would try his damndest.”

I’m surprised to hear her curse. In my mind kids from the 50s never cursed. I chuckle at my own preconceived notions and Cynthia raises her eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?” she demands.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I truly mean it. “It’s just when you cursed.”

She shrugs.

“I never pictured any teenagers from the 50s cursing.”

She cracks a smile, a real one. “I imagine that you’ve seen too many films set in the 50s, then?”

I smile, too. “I’ve seen my share, yes.”

Her smile softens. “Mom, and father and I used to go to the movie theatre. It was always a big event.” Her eyes go glassy, with remembrance, I think. “It was one of my favorite things ever.”

The mood is somber once again, and we’re both still.

Finally, I whisper, “I’m sorry.” The words seem so empty, useless, stupid even. I’m sorry. What a hollow sentiment for what Cynthia has been through, for what she’s just found out. Just remembered. While I wish that the one who killed her would be brought to justice, I also hope that she never remembers the moment when they actually killed her. She doesn’t deserve to; she deserves to go into the next life with a happy memory. The next life…something I wasn’t certain I truly believed in. Until now.

“I know. I know you are.”

“So what now?” I ask.

She looks up at the trees. “Moving on? I imagined there would be some sort of white light…”

“Yeah. Me, too. Although I wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“You can see me.”

“Fair point. But so could Joycelyn.”

“That’s true.”

Our conversation lulls, and we both look up to the sky, like we’re expecting to see a great white light shine from it and carry Cynthia up in it.

“Why isn’t- why can’t I...go on?”

“Maybe something else needs to happen before you can.”

“Such as?”

I shake my head, and as I do I see someone else several feet behind Cynthia. She wasn’t there just a moment ago, I’m sure of it.

“Hello?” I call out to her. “Who are you?”

Cynthia turns around. “Mom?”

“Grandma?” I blink.

The woman steps forward and I get my first good look at her. She is not my Grandma as I’ve known her, but from old pictures I’ve seen of her. Faded and frayed at the edges. This is my Grandma closer to the time Cynthia would have known her.

But when smiles, it is still the same. “Hello, dear,” she says to me.

“Cynthia.” She looks over at her daughter. “Just the same as the last day I saw you. Right here, in this forest.” She holds out her hands and Cynthia walks over to her, hands held out in front of her. When they meet in the middle the tips of their fingers fall right through each other’s, and they’re both suddenly less solid. They let their hands hover there, barely touching.

“I’m sorry,” my young Grandma chokes out. “I’m s-so sorry.”

“I know, mama,” Cynthia replies, her voice suddenly small, like a scared child. Which, I remind myself, is what she is, really. “We’re together now,” she says, her voice stronger this time. Their hands twitch and I think Grandma may be trying to squeeze Cynthia’s hand. They stare into each other’s eyes, and though I don’t want to interrupt the moment, I need to ask. Even though I do also know already.

“Grandma?” It’s the only word I can get out.

Her eyes find mine. A soft smile on her lips. She knows what I’m asking. “I just died, sweetie.” I knew, really, but it still hurts. Even though Grandma is – was – one hundred years old. “I was taking a nap in my bed, and then I was here.” Her eyes go unfocused a moment. “Your mom is just finding me now. Poor dear.”

“How do you know that?” I interrupt.

“I know,” she says mysteriously. “You should get home to her, Jasmine. She’ll be needing you. One hundred years old or not, she’s still going to be quite upset.”

“Jasmine’s mom? Your other daughter? My younger sister?” Cynthis interjects. She doesn’t sound bitter. Younger sister. It’s strange to think of it like that, even though it is technically true, Mom is older now than Cynthia will ever have the chance to be.

“Yes.” Grandma smiles. “I’m sad you two never got the chance to meet. I never even told her about you, or anyone, really. I couldn’t. It was too much…”

Their hands make that motion like they’re giving each other a reassuring squeeze again. Cynthia nods her understanding. “Still,” Grandma continues, “I so wish you two could have met. You would have been the best big sister. But now, she will know the truth. Jasmine can tell her.”

“What? How will I-”

“There’s an old shoebox in the very back of my closet. It has pictures no one has seen in decades. Of me and Cynthia. And an old diary that details the whole thing. Show your mother those. She’ll believe you then.”

“And what do I tell her when she asks how I knew they were there?”

“Go ahead and tell her the truth. Your mother was always fairly open minded. Tell her all of this first, and then show her the shoebox with the pictures and diary. I think she’ll believe you, dear.”

“Okay. I’m going to miss you, Grandma,” I whisper.

She steps away from Cynthia and walks over to me, lifting her hand to lay it barely on my cheek. I can just feel it. “I know, dear. I will miss you, too, and your mother. You were the best granddaughter. But I’ve had my time. I’ve had more than my time. It’s time to move on.”

I nod. “Love you, Grandma.”

Her smile is the smile I’ve always known. “I love you, too.”

She makes her way back over to Cynthia, the leaves silent under her feet. “Shall we, my dear?”

Cynthia nods then turns to look at me. “Thank you, Jasmine. I think I know why I was drawn to you now. You were in this forest – where my soul has been stuck – and you are a relative. You soul called to mine.”

I smile with tear tracks down my cheeks. “I’m sorry I never got to know you as my Aunt.”

“Me, too,” she says. “Thank you again.” A pause. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope it’s a very long time for you until we see you again.”

I laugh through my tears.

“I second that,” Grandma says.

A soft white light opens up on front of them and they are more translucent than ever. Grandma reaches out for Cynthia’s hand, and they barely touch once again. “Come along, dear. It’s time to go.”

Tears sting my eyes, and I blink them away so I can watch them walk into the light until they fade from view. As soon as they’re engulfed by it, it shrinks into nothingness. A soft breeze follows, and I can again hear the birds singing, and animals scurrying through the forest. My phone dings at that exact moment. Service is back.

I glance down at the screen. Missed call: Mom.

I know exactly what she’s calling about.

I exhale shakily. Grandma may have told me what to do, but I’m still not sure how I’m going to explain all of this to my mom. Grandma’s secret.